Agenda item

Members to receive an update of the performance exceptions of Leicestershire Police for the period April 2020 to 30 June 2020 (Qtr. 1).

Members will be asked to comment on the recommendations for further analysis based on exceptions and to note the contents of the report.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on the performance of the Leicestershire Police for the period 1 April 2020 to 30 June 2020.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·         The Panel were interested to know what the analysis showed in terms of trend and whether benchmarking was carried out across areas of LLR to determine different trends between city areas and districts.

·         The Panel were informed that there was some regional comparison; last year LLR had 7.2 offences per 1000 population compared to other regions having 8.4, 9.9, 10.3 and 10.7 per 1000 population however those figures were subject to change because of under recording and final data was not yet available.

·         In terms of defining violence with injury, Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) had been chosen as a threshold offence in determining classification so taking Common Assault as an example this would usually fall into violence without injury but under reclassification Common Assault could also be reclassified as ABH. However, it was important to note there were lots of other violence with injury offences too.

·         A piece of work had been done through the VRN to analyse background data across different areas, from that it could be seen that the City and Charnwood stood out so those were treated as priority areas in terms of looking to reduce crime.

·         In terms of trend, patterns were not always clear, Knife Crime and Murder offences data was stable however such offences were still a constant concern.

3.45pm The Chair left the meeting and the Vice Chair assumed the Chair for the remainder of the meeting.

Panel Members discussed the content and presentation of data within the report and indicated they would like to see more context to the data to help determine what they should be concerned about, what needed more focus, whether there were underlying factors causing the data results and to see how well police were responding to crime.

The Panel were advised that work had been done looking holistically at the drivers for violence including background factors and risk indicators, however this was captured in a very detailed way rather than a strategic overview.

Panel Members referred to the data provided to Community Safety Partnerships (CSP) and the differences between that and the contents of this report. However, Panel Members were advised that the CSP were in a different position and were able to be more granular, whereas the remit of this Panel was to maintain a strategic focus rather than being drawn into parochial issues. It was recognised that a balance was needed to present the data in a useful way with some narrative to give context and to show what might be underlying trends.

4pm Cllr Les Phillimore left the meeting.

Panel Members were informed that awareness raising workshops could be organised to look at particular matters if required.

There was a brief discussion about the broadness of categories such as Hate Crime and the other exceptions where there was significant pattern of behaviour and it was noted that these were reviewed robustly and considered in other forums such as the Strategic Assurance Board.

Panel Members noted that whilst data of Child Sexual Exploitation had been provided there wasn’t data for Child Criminal Exploitation. It was advised this data was not yet readily available although it was looked at in terms of missing children.

There was discussion around enforcement of Covid measures, the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) and whether there was any disproportionate enforcement or bias in people being stopped. It was clarified that the issuing of FPN was not necessarily related to Stop and Search, these were separate issues that should not be conflated and the vast majority of FPN had been issued for contravening requirements or instructions of movement etc. In terms of a trend or pattern by gender/race/age there was not a local breakdown of that data although the National breakdown suggested more males between the age 18-24 had been issued FPN’s and data around ethnicity was self-defined with the majority white and a high proportion of Asian background.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the contents of the report be noted.

2.    That consideration be given to providing additional context to the data in future reports in line with the comments above.